Sometimes The Answer Is No

And this is one of those times.

Yesterday, while in a committee meeting, I noticed I had a voicemail waiting. Our campus is equal parts M.C. Escher funhouse and Cold War bomb shelter with lots of weird stairways and reinforced concrete walls. So it's not unusual for me to miss calls or texts while moving from place to place only to have them turn long after they've been left. So, once the meeting ended, I slipped out to a side parking lot by the mailroom to ensure good reception and checked the message. As I thought it might be, it was from Wendy of Delta College's HR department. The message simply said that she was responding to my email from earlier in the week and that I should give her a call back. (I'd emailed last Monday, supposedly asking about my mileage reimbursement but actually hoping for news about the hiring committee's decision.)

I could tell just from her voice on the message that this was not a woman about to give good news.

I called her back, and after a moment or two of chatter about the mileage reimbursement, she simply said, "The committee decided to recommend a different candidate for the position." I thanked her and she gave the typical HR patter for a situation like this: "So nice to meet you, good luck, etc." And we hung up.

So, after six long months of hoping, planning, dreaming, trying not to let our hopes get too high, and failing at not letting our hopes get to high, that particular possible future is no longer an option. It's not the only job I'll ever interview for and maybe not even the last time I'll apply at Delta. But for now, we are just...here. I still have a pretty good job. We still have a nice, comfortable house. We're going to be fine, of course. It just kind of sucks that this thing that we thought was so perfect, so right in every way, is just not for us right now.

Suzy, who often is very wise and calm in situations like this, rightly pointed out that with the end of my PhD finally in sight, moving and starting a new job probably would have been a monumental distraction. Perhaps we're here for another year because I need to finally finish that particular life goal and be ready to move on in the future, unencumbered by an unfinished degree. That makes sense to me.

I'm a person who is given to deep, long term bitterness over what I perceive to be wrongs. In high school, I really only had one topic of conversation: the great unfairness of Sunni Sorenson. In college, it was the profound betrayal of Antonia Decker. When I feel like I've gotten the short end of the stick, it consumes me. I can hold a grudge like I've got it slung to my chest like a baby in a Snugli. So it surprises me that I'm not a lot more upset about this turn of events. Maybe it hasn't struck me yet. Maybe our Saturday excursion to the wilds of Norway, IL to have lunch and an Easter egg hunt with some friends from the ward distracted me. Maybe tomorrow when I go to church and serve in two of my three callings ( I got a third a couple weeks ago - so now I'm a nursery worker, Sunday school teacher to the teenagers, and the second Sunday Elders Quorum instructor), it will hit me and I'll think, "Oh yeah, that's right. I really, really, really wanted to get out of this podunk hellhole and into a real town, school, ward, and neighborhood."

But not tonight. Tonight, I'm willing to just say, "Meh. So it goes." I've got church in the morning, work on Monday, and a prospectus defense to prep for. I probably ought to spend my time on those things rather than on nurturing a big, healthy shoulder chip that will get me nowhere.

Thanks to everybody for your prayers, good wishes, and interest. I've appreciated hearing from you about this over the last few months.